The Complete Stephen King Universe

by Stanley Wiater

  The snow and isolation recall such King works as The Shining, Misery, Gerald’s Game, and Storm of the Century. One could even make the case that the unfortunate Richard McCarthy (obviously a reference to the main actor in the original film version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers) might have encountered the “god of the woods,” featured so prominently in The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, in his trek through the forest.

  Influences include movies like Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Evil Dead, Alien, and They Came from Within and novels like Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness (the name of the character Kurtz).

  Major portions of Dreamcatcher take place in Derry, Maine. The four major characters grew up there in the 1970s, relatively unaware of the terror that lurked in the town’s sewer system (Pennywise the Clown was still dormant during this time, licking wounds incurred in his battle with the Losers in 1958). Duddits, their friend, is a lifelong resident of the town.

  Most importantly, the narrative references past history when Gary, possessed by the nefarious alien Mr. Gray, detours through the town, searching for a water supply that the alien hopes to infect with the virus his strange race uses to attack other species. It is at this point in King’s narrative when his Constant Readers receive a not completely unexpected jolt. Coming upon the Derry Standpipe, Gary/Gray sees a monument at its base, a statue of two children, a boy and a girl “with their hands linked and their heads lowered, as if in prayer.” In an obvious reference to It, a plaque attached to the statue reads:

  TO THOSE LOST IN THE STORM

  MAY 31, 1985

  AND TO THE CHILDREN

  ALL THE CHILDREN

  LOVE FROM BILL, BEN, BEV, EDDIE, RICHIE, STAN, MIKE

  THE LOSERS CLUB

  The plaque is marred by graffiti, significant to those who know Derry’s secret history—spray-painted over the inscription in “jagged red letters” are two words: “PENNYWISE LIVES!”

  DREAMCATCHER: PRIMARY SUBJECTS

  GARY JONES: Born in 1964, “Jonesy” grew up in Derry, Maine. There he made four lifelong friends in Henry Devlin, Joe Clarendon, Pete Moore, and Douglas “Duddits” Cavell. The quintet had many adventures together, the most important being the time they found a young girl, Josie Rinkenhauer, who had been the subject of a desperate search in town. Josie had fallen into a drainpipe and was trapped there until the boys, utilizing their strange bond, rescued her.

  Gary grows up to be an associate professor of history at John Jay College in Boston. Although still a young man, Gary feels a void in his life, something his childhood friends are also feeling. On March 17, 2001, Gary is struck by a car as he crosses a busy street. Gary is severely injured (his heart stops twice), but is sufficiently recovered by November 2001 to make his annual pilgrimage with his boyhood friends (except for Douglas) to a cabin in the Maine woods that the group refers to as Hole in the Wall.

  Alone at the cabin, Gary has the unfortunate pleasure of meeting Richard McCarthy, a hunter who has been infected by an alien virus. A manifestation of the virus possesses Gary, infecting him with the personality of an alien who dubs himself Mr. Gray (an anagram for Gary?). Mr. Gray is determined to spread his brethren throughout the human population via an infected dog, whose barely functioning body he wishes to drop in a major water supply.

  In control of Gary’s body, Mr. Gray travels to the Quabbin Reservoir in order to accomplish his goal. At the very last moment, Gary, who has maintained a foothold in his body by psychologically fleeing to a remote room of his mental “memory cathedral,” gets the best of the alien, slaying him in mental combat, thus saving the world from disaster.

  HENRY DEVLIN: As Dreamcatcher begins, Henry, now a psychiatrist, is struggling with depression and contemplating suicide. Although he and Pete Devlin are away from the cabin fetching supplies at Gosselin’s Market when Richard McCarthy visits Hole in the Wall, Henry is not spared an encounter with the aliens, as the pair encounters an unfortunate woman who, like McCarthy, has become host to an entity King refers to as a “shit-weasel.”

  Henry later finds himself under quarantine in the camp of Blue Unit, facing extermination. Already used to psychic abilities from his exposure to the rest of the quintet, Henry uses the telepathic ability granted to all those touched by the virus to make contact with Owen Underhill, a leader of the unit who has doubts about the course of action the special unit is taking. He and Owen escape together, setting out to find Jonesy/Mr. Gray. Along the way, they travel through Derry to pick up Douglas Cavell, who aids them in their search. Although wounded in a car crash as they approach Quabbin reservoir, Henry survives. As Dreamcatcher ends, we see a more relaxed Henry hanging out with Jonesy and his family.

  JOE CLARENDON: Nicknamed Beaver, Joe was a wisecracking, foul-mouthed kid who grew into a wisecracking, foul-mouthed adult. Beaver is a carpenter by trade, a drinker by habit, a man with few friends other than Jonesy, Henry, and Peter. He is killed by the shit-weasel that formerly inhabited Richard McCarthy.

  PETE MOORE: Pete is described as a man for whom “hunting was a hobby, beer a religion.” A car salesman, Pete has trouble connecting with others, perhaps because they sense a strangeness about him. The strangeness is caused by the telepathy he shares with his friends, and by Pete’s ability to find “the line,” which might best be described as the shortest path between two points. As a child, Pete followed the line to Josie Rinkenhauer. As an adult, he uses the power to find lost keys.

  Pete single-handedly battles a shit-weasel, defeating it. Unfortunately, the injuries it inflicts upon him in battle prove fatal.

  RICHARD McCARTHY: Part of an unfortunate hunting party, McCarthy wanders the Maine woods for hours after being infected by the “Ripley” virus. Taken in by Jonesy, he exhibits strange behavior, babbling incoherently; he also suffers from apparently uncontrollable flatulence. McCarthy dies on the toilet, depositing a shit-weasel in the bowl. The shit-weasel subsequently kills Beaver but is destroyed by Jonesy, who sets it and its eggs on fire, destroying Hole in the Wall.

  DOUGLAS “DUDDITS” CAVELL: A child afflicted with Down Syndrome, Duddits is befriended by Jonesy, Henry, Joe, and Pete after they save him from a sadistic bully named Richie Grenedeau. As they spend more time together, the boys come to realize that they are now linked together telepathically through Duddits, who exhibits the wild talents of a tranny. As teenagers, the quintet uses these powers to locate the missing girl Josie Rinkenhauer. As adults, these powers come in handy in their struggles to subdue the Ripley virus.

  In the end, it seems to Henry that Duddits had been waiting for the aliens to arrive, as he seems to have expected the arrival of his friend and Owen Underhill as they pursue Gary/Mr. Gray. Using the dying Duddits as a human bloodhound, Henry and Underhill are able to track Mr. Gray as he travels to the Quabbin reservoir. The experience proves too much for Duddits, the human dreamcatcher, who dies as they approach the reservoir.

  THE DREAMCATCHER: An elaborate woven Indian charm meant to ward off nightmares. A dreamcatcher, which Beaver believes once caused all the boys to have the same dream at the same time, hangs from the ceiling at the cabin called Hole in the Wall. Duddits is the human dreamcatcher who binds the group of five together.

  MR. GRAY: A manifestation of the alien virus whose consciousness literally takes over Jonesy’s body, driving Jonesy’s consciousness into a small room in his “memory cathedral.” Having control over a human vessel gives the alien an opportunity to spread the alien virus more effectively. Tapping Jonesy’s memory, Mr. Gray hits on a plan of dumping a virus-infected dog carcass into a major water supply. He thus embarks on a journey that leads him from Hole in the Wall to the Quabbin reservoir, where he is defeated by Jonesy before he can follow through with his plans.

  ABRAHAM PETER KURTZ: Born Robert Coonts, this flamboyant soldier changed his name to purposely evoke the villain from Joseph Conrad’s memorable novella Heart of Darkness. Along with the members of his Blue Boy squad, retired Air Force officer Kurtz has grappled with the aliens
for twenty-five years, always frustrating their invasion attempts because of his utter ruthlessness. Unfortunately, Kurtz has been driven mad by this struggle. Fearing a modern Typhoid Mary, Kurtz tracks Jonesy/Mr. Gray from the Jefferson Tract to the Quabbin Reservoir. Kurtz is killed by one of his own men shortly after fatally wounding Owen Underhill.

  OWEN UNDERHILL: Second in command to Kurtz in the Jefferson Tract operation, Underhill (who bears the first name of one of King’s sons and the last name of one of Peter Straub’s more famous characters, Tim Underhill) begins to have doubts about Kurtz’s sanity. Finding himself telepathically linked to Henry via the alien virus, he is persuaded by the psychiatrist to free him from quarantine. Together, they set off in pursuit of Jonesy/Mr. Gray.

  Along the way, they stop in Derry to pick up Duddits, who aids them in their mission. Underhill is instrumental in frustrating the alien invasion, killing the shit-weasel Mr. Gray was trying to dump into the Quabbin reservoir with his rifle. Unfortunately, Underhill is gut-shot by the pursuing Kurtz. He subsequently begs a comrade to end his life; his buddy complies with Underhill’s wishes.

  THE RIPLEY VIRUS: The army’s name for an alien virus, named for the Sigourney Weaver character in the various Alien movies, and for Ripley’s Believe It or Not. Described as sort of an “interstellar kudzu,” the virus takes several forms. The virus is carried by humanoid vessels the army refers to as “grays,” alien beings resembling the little gray creatures featured in the classic movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind. These are essentially organic delivery systems. Humans infected by contact with a gray are said to be suffering from Ripley Prime. Under certain circumstances, Ripley Prime can cause a parasitic, egg-laying shit-weasel, a creature resembling a furry lamprey with a mouth containing “a nest of teeth,” to gestate within its host. Another, less lethal manifestation of the virus is called “byrus.” This manifestation takes the form of a red-yellow growth that quickly spreads across everything it’s exposed to.

  The growth, or byrus, as the aliens refer to it, has proven successful in taking over other planets; it does not thrive as well on Earth, however, and seems susceptible to extreme cold. In all previous cases of alien attack, the threat has been eliminated by the military so quickly that the byrus has never had a chance to adapt or mutate. The aliens seek a better vessel to carry out their invasion. Gary Jones, who has somehow been forever changed by his car accident, proves to be that vessel.

  DREAMCATCHER: ADAPTATIONS

  Dreamcatcher was made into a film in 2003, directed by Lawrence Kasdan and based on a screenplay by veteran screenwriter William Goldman, who also did the screenwriting chores for the successful Misery and the less successful Hearts in Atlantis film adaptations. The movie is quite forgettable, despite the presence of the formidable Morgan Freeman, who plays military madman Col. Abraham Curtis (the name Kurtz was dropped to avoid the literary baggage of Heart of Darkness) in an off-putting, over-the-top manner. The four actors who play Gary, Henry, Joe, and Pete (Damian Lewis, Thomas Jane, Jason Lee, and Timothy Oliphant, respectively) are largely interchangeable. Goldman remains faithful to his source material until the final moments, but the film never quite catches the camaraderie of the quartet, nor the deep affection they all feel for Duddits. The film’s major departure from the book lies in transforming Duddits into an alien life form at the end of the movie—seems he was planted on Earth decades before should the deadly enemies of his spacefaring race ever appear on Earth. The final battle between the antagonistic aliens is silly at best.

  DREAMCATCHER: TRIVIA

  • As word of the military’s presence in the Maine woods spreads, an excited radio DJ is heard to say: “Interstellar plague’s on the loose, brothers and sisters, that’s the word. Call it the Hot Zone, the Dead Zone, or the Twilight Zone, you want to cancel your trip up north.”

  18

  RELATED TALES

  “Autopsy Room Four” (from 1997’s Six Stories)

  Autopsy Room Four,” a tale reminiscent of Edgar Allen Poe, details the travails of Howard Cotter, a golfer rendered unconscious by a snakebite while on Derry Municipal Golf Course. Howard awakens in an autopsy room just as the coroners are preparing to cut him from stem to stern. Able to see and hear, Howard is still paralyzed by the bite, and watches helplessly as the doctors prepare to go about their grim tasks. Fortunately for Howard, the autopsy is interrupted before he can be injured.

  Going through his golf bag, paramedics are surprised to find an exotic snake. This is one instance where we won’t reveal the ending—King’s buildup, leading up to the story’s last line, is outright hilarious.

  “AUTOPSY ROOM FOUR”: PRIMARY SUBJECTS

  HOWARD COTRELL: Howard Cottrell is a golfer who is paralyzed by a snakebite and nearly autopsied as a result. He currently resides somewhere near Derry, Maine. He has, however, developed an interesting fetish as a result of his experiences in the autopsy room.

  “The Road Virus Heads North” (from 2002’s Everything’s Eventual)

  This tale of the supernatural made its appearance in 999, a massive anthology edited by Al Sarrantonio, published in 1999. King’s contribution, entitled “The Road Virus Heads North,” about a figure in a portrait that comes to life, recalls his 1990 novella The Sun Dog and his novel Rose Madder (1995), which featured similar elements.

  Author Richard Kinnell is on his way back to Derry, Maine, after attending a writer’s conference in Boston, when he decides to stop at a garage sale in Rosewood. Scanning the items for sale, he is taken with a vivid, framed watercolor. Purchasing the painting despite its bleak subject matter (a picture of a deranged, fanged driver in his Grand Am) and the fact that the artist recently committed suicide, Kinnell puts it in his trunk and proceeds on his journey, stopping at his Aunt Trudy’s house along the way.

  Kinnell shows the picture to his aunt, who is extremely disturbed by it. This bothers him, but not as much as the fact that the picture has changed since he bought it—the figure has moved, if only slightly. The next day, Kinnell tosses the painting into a ditch, only to find it waiting for him when he gets home. The watercolor has changed once again, this time showing a scene of carnage at the Rosewood home where he purchased it. Checking the news, Kinnell discovers that the woman who was running the garage sale is dead, brutally murdered by an unknown assailant.

  Later he hears a car stopping outside, and realizes to his horror that the fanged man has come directly to his home.

  SECTION THREE

  The Prime Reality, Part II: Castle Rock

  The small New England mill town of Castle Rock, Maine, was for many years, without a doubt, the geographical center of the Stephen King Universe. Located in southwestern Maine—ten miles south of Rumford and about thirty miles west of Augusta—the unusually tragedy-stricken town figures in several short stories (such as “Mrs. Todd’s Shortcut,” “Nona,” “Uncle Otto’s Truck,” and “It Grows on You”), two novellas (The Body and The Sun Dog), and four novels (see below). Much more than a mere setting for King’s tales of the strange and macabre, the site also effectively functioned as a scale model of contemporary American society.

  King began experimenting with the idea of the small town as a “social and psychological microcosm” as far back as Carrie (1974) and became more ambitious with the concept in ’Salem’s Lot (1975). He did not hit his stride, however, until The Dead Zone (1979), his first novel to feature Castle Rock. There, psychic Johnny Smith is asked to lend a hand in tracking down the infamous Castle Rock Strangler. Smith reluctantly agrees, subsequently revealing the killer to be Frank Dodd, a popular local law enforcement officer. Dodd’s crimes, and subsequent suicide, make national headlines, beginning what many locals consider to be nothing less than a curse on the town.

  Clearly, King knows the town intimately. How intimately? Well, in the introduction to The Sun Dog, the author refers to his own wealth of unwritten knowledge about the town, noting examples including “how Sheriff George Bannerman lost his virginity in the back sea
t of his dead father’s car.”

  As the years passed, the author “became more and more interested in—almost entranced by—the secret life of this town, by the hidden relationships which seemed to come clearer and clearer” to him. Castle Rock had become his town, the way “the mythical town of Isola is Ed McBain’s town and the West Virginia village of Glory was Davis Grubb’s town.”

  Unlike the town of Derry, or for that matter ’Salem’s Lot, King has not revealed much of the Castle Rock’s history before the turn of the 20th century. In fact, the most ancient history he’s related has been in the short stories “The Man in the Black Suit” and “Uncle Otto’s Truck.” For all practical purposes, the history of Castle Rock as it relates to the Stephen King Universe began with the aforementioned The Dead Zone.

  As previously mentioned, many residents believe Frank Dodd’s actions cast a spell of evil on the town. The evidence? Since 1979, Castle Rock has certainly had more than its share of tragedy. In 1981, Joe Camber’s two-hundred-pound St. Bernard, Cujo, went rabid and killed several people (see the chapter on Cujo). In 1989, famous writer Thad Beaumont was attacked by a madman claiming to be George Stark, a man who couldn’t possibly exist (see the chapter on The Dark Half). Beaumont never fully recovered from the incident, first separating from his wife, then later committing suicide. And in 1990, Reginald “Pop” Merrill, a fixture of Castle Rock’s business community, died in a fire of suspicious origin (see the chapter on “The Sun Dog”).